The Internet and the World Wide Web (“Web”) have changed the landscape of information delivery and affected numerous aspects of life, including commerce and entertainment. One area that has benefited from this technology development is the ability of individuals to buy and sell items within an electronic marketplace.
Many service providers operate auctions and other selling mechanisms on servers connected to the users over one or more networks, typically including the Internet. The users selling items over these networks vary from single users to large corporations, such as Walt Disney Corporation and International Business Machines Corporation. Some users retail their products and services not only through their own electronic marketplace but also by leveraging third-party electronic marketplaces, such as an auction site.
To enhance the buying and selling experience in the electronic marketplace, a service provider of such a marketplace may provide many applications to facilitate the ease of doing business in the marketplace. One such application may be a category listing application that allows the sellers to conveniently classify their products and services in a specific location of the marketplace. This classification in turn facilitates buyers searching for specific goods or services. Examples of the categories available in a marketplace include books, coins, music, home and garden, toys and hobbies, tickets and consumer electronics.
However, it is challenging for a user to individually categorize a wide range of merchandise in large quantity. For example, Walt Disney Corporation retails toys, apparels, collectables, theme park tickets and vacation services, where each of these items are listed in different categories.
In addition, due to business needs, the service provider of the marketplace may need to make changes to the categories. For example, the service provider may merge one category with another, add a new category, rename an existing category or delete a category. The user needs to be constantly informed of the changes in order to list an item in the right category.